


Balance in the Force

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Angel: the Series, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:43:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5678308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exquisite form of punishment for our heroes maintains balance between Good and Evil. Or something like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance in the Force

It’s a punishment, Wesley realizes a week into his semi-official post-death relationship with his deeply angry ex-girlfriend who is still in love with him more than he is in love with her. An abominably clever punishment. Every day they spend together, Lilah wins another bit of his heart back. And Wesley loses a little bit of his soul.

The cost of Wesley’s happiness is his soul. It’s a brilliant bit of work, and he suspects it was Lilah’s very own personal idea. He suspects wrong, but it galls him.

It’s a punishment. Lilah knows that. She knows that if she wins and turns Wesley Wyndam-Pryce to the Dark Side, they’ll be happy. Happy means they will not run an efficient Hell. That means someone will overthrow them and they will be subject to mind-destroying, never-ending torture. Or worse.

He can’t be happy, and she has to stay unredeemable. Not that she entirely minds, but an irredeemable bitch is always going to be second to the pure and now oh-so-conveniently sainted and obliterated Fred Burkle.

It’s smart, as a general plan and all, but what if she decides in favor of love?

“What do you mean, choose in favor of love?” Wes asks when they mutually talk about how clever their Hell really is. “You mean you would dare allow a demon to put a finger on your skin for the love of me?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Lilah answers, looking out the window at the grey plains of their realm. “Like two humans taking over the Pit. But probably not. I’m just pointing out it’s a flaw in the neat circularity they were going for.”

“Neat?”

“Precise neat, not cool neat,” Lilah says. “Anyway. So what do you think we should do?”

“Pretend we’re not as smart as we are,” Wes says ruefully. “If we forget that we understand our own punishments, then perhaps the balance can stand, oh my beloved Sith Lord.”

“The Jedis always pissed me off anyway,” Lilah answers with a shrug. “How can you understand the whole of things without the Dark Side? I mean, okay. It’s like Faust. He wanted to know more, and he was punished. It’s like Adam and Eve. What the hell kind of God bitchslaps an entire species for curiosity?”

Wes shrugs. “It’s not about knowledge. It’s about arrogance. About thinking the ends justify the means,” he says.

“Oh, that’s sophistry,” Lilah snaps. “Why shouldn’t people use whatever means they have? And like your side doesn’t do it ALL the time!”

Angel’s beige era has given Wesley more headaches than he would ever like to admit, especially in winning any arguments about the nature of Good with Lilah. What had Angel been thinking when he’d threatened any woman — even an evil woman who’d been indirectly involved with a ritual murder — with rape as a punishment?

Probably he had been thinking that the ends justified the means. A sign of the Dark Side. A compromise made because it had to be made. Wesley sighs heavily, and a servant passes by with chilled champagne and orange juice. And big, fat, delectable pastries. Lilah takes three and a mimosa. Wesley has two mimosas and one pastry.

They live very well. And their servants are so pleased by their relative disinterest in abuse and personal evil that they’re very loyal and do good work. It assuages Wesley’s feeling of bourgeois swinehood at enjoying an entourage of servants he doesn’t pay.

“Logically irrelevant as an argument,” Wes says. “The ends do not justify the means, or free will is…well, buggered, basically.”

“But okay, here’s the thing,” Lilah says. “Do the means justify the ends? If I choose to do something good in the pursuit of evil, where does it count? Or even if I do something perfectly nice, like say, have mind-blowing good sex with you because I know you’ll make sure I have four orgasms for your every one? Does my selfishness negate my generosity?”

Wesley’s expression turns sly. “Generosity?” he inquires, setting a finger on her wrist and moving it ever-so-slowly upward. “My dear, you have a slant notion of generous if you believe your sexual desire qualifies.”

“I love you more than you love me,” Lilah murmurs, leaning back and letting her eyes half-close seductively. “So your honesty, lover, hurts me a lot. I do love you, you know.”

“I know,” Wes replies, pausing at her elbow. “Are we discussing generosity? Or the ends and the means?”

Lilah puts a hand on her neck, undoes her scarf and begins to work on the hooks on her blouse. Lets her knees fall open lazily. Licks her bottom lip.

“We’re justifying ourselves,” she says, as Wesley begins to get rid of his own clothes. “And our endless dilemna and punishment. We can be happy, we can be powerful, but not perfectly so, and we’ll distrust both to the end of days.”

“I thought,” and Wesley’s hand tangles in Lilah’s hair, tickling her jaw and ear, “We had forgotten about our punishment.”

“What punishment?” Lilah asks throatily, as Wesley’s chair is upended to deposit both of them on the floor, because Wes has no intention of simply landing in her lap. That would be too easy, and he has a spine.

Meanwhile, in a pleasant cafe in Paris, two figures of celestial import, which is to say a heavenly agent and an infernal one, are enjoying a cup of coffee. And their handiwork.

“It _is_ a brilliant punishment,” Aziraphale says, sipping at an espresso. “Right up to the part where you incorporated their off-and-on realizations that they are being punished into the mix.”

Crowley chuckles. “You have no idea how much work it took,” he says. “The punishments had to be nearly equal, or one of the arrogant little gits would have wrecked the balance.”

Aziraphale smiles beatifically. “Oh, I do understand,” he says. “Remember, I was in charge of designing the rewards for the other side? Or perhaps you think that house — palatial seat of power, I suppose — is really a hell.”

“Clever,” Crowley agrees. “Very, very clever of both of us, balancing that pair for their productive capabilities. Both sides keep a favored worker, who is kept more or less satisfied, and…”

“Balance is maintained.”

“Exactly,” Crowley says, in succinct summation. “Poor bastards.”


End file.
